


wallflower

by guide_to_the_galaxy



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Teenage Dorks, and want her to be happy, i just love april so much, in which april loves her brothers and they love her even more, she deserves the world and all the friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 08:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16512560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guide_to_the_galaxy/pseuds/guide_to_the_galaxy
Summary: Sometimes April feels like she was born wrong. Like she should've been something else- something more- and she doesn't know her place in this world, in the way it's changing. But her brothers know, even if they can't exactly find their own. And, in the end of it all, together, their place is with each other.





	wallflower

**Author's Note:**

> based off the hypno episode. i fell in love even more with april and kinda wrote this drabble bc she didnt deserve that.

**2009**

“Holy crap, holy crap,  _ho-ly crap!”_ she screams into the darkness of her bedroom, only lit by her small television and the starry night lights shining on her ceiling.

The green little things freeze at her window, and they’re terrified, in the same way April gets when she’s asked to talk about literally  _anything_  publicly  _ever-_ like her favorite ice cream or favorite place in the world or why her beads make so much noise.

They’re afraid and they don’t move, not even as April inches closer to her window and lifts it open a bit more, the sounds of the city and the cool night air rushing in.

Her eyes, wide and brilliantly bright and  _wondering_ peer on their faces, and when April reaches out a small hand to touch the biggest one, he falls back, the other three scrambling away too.

They’re  _scared- whatever they are-_  but April’s not.

Her lips part and she reaches out again.

“Hey, ‘m not gonna hurt ya,” she says, quiet and with a small smile, “I jus’ got a little excited. I love-” cocking her head at them, April chuckles, “Turtles?”

The smallest in orange, in an over sized aviator’s hat, is the first to relax, offering a breathless smile back. And April steps back into her room, taking his hand.

Blue and Red follow, Blue going right for a spot in front of her T.V, gazing up at Clueless- which April is probably too young to watch- and Red looks around her room like it’s a cage, which makes April’s stomach twist because he shouldn’t  _look like that._

“Pop is gonna kill us,” the one in purple mumbles, climbing in after, and seeing her bed he raises a brow, “Oh goodie, comfort!”

And April, all of seven and having seen and fallen in love with every monster movie, and every monster in said movie  _ever,_  and knowing the script of Lilo and Stitch like the back of her hand- grins in the absolute purest delight.

/-/

Sometimes April feels like she was born  _wrong._  Like maybe the universe meant to bless her as a mutant but messed everything up and doomed her existence entirely by making her human.

And sometimes April knows she’s just being dramatic, overthinking as usual, and gets back to work and fake socializing and  _living,_  just because she’s April, after all, and made wrong or not she’s got something fierce in her. That’s what her dad says, and the guy next door who heard her dad say it through the walls.

“Maybe that’s why I can’t function!” she says- like it’s a good thing- while Mikey practices her lashes late one night, “Maybe I’m- just…”

And Mikey hushes her; if it’s because the more she talks the harder gluing individual lashes on gets, or because he’s already told her a million different ways how great she is, April isn’t really sure.

The feeling of not belonging, though, is pretty much cemented into her every way of  _being_  and it stings sometimes, when she’s not with her boys, or lurking somewhere in a hidden Mutant City, running head first into deadly, terrible, crazy things for shits and giggles and a lack of self-preservation.

And, God, she hasn’t felt such a belonging in a long, long time with  _people-_  not genuine and warm and familiar like she feels with the guys.

“You’re gonna be  _fine,_ April,” Raph says from her beanbag chair, helping Leo apply his face mask, “You’re like the dopest human we know, we’re pretty sure ya doin’ it right.”

“If _anything,”_ Mikey adds, undoing her ponytails, “You’re like the right- _est_ human, maybe everyone else’s just like…one step behind.”

“You don’t wanna be a mutant, April- I mean we make it look cool as _hell_ but-” Leo shrugs, and gets that resigned look about him that April hates, “It’s not…y'know.”

“There’s a lotta shit we can’t do,” without looking up from his phone, Donnie mumbles.

“Yah pretty much.”

And April groans- because  _they don’t get it._  Or maybe she’s out of tune, she can’t really know their shit like they know it, no matter how close they are, and all the years she’s spent loving them. April wishes she could, with everything she’s got; wishes they could understand her, too, probably.

“Yeah well,” she mutters instead, tugging on a few loose strings in her rug, “Not ta compare baggage or nothin’ but y'all are also dope. And dope with a magical…hidden, little village. I got a shitty high school with _exceedingly_  shitty people. That I have to face- alone-  _every day.”_

It sinks and settles for a few quiet moments that only April’s playlist sounds softly in her bedroom and Raph frowns, top fang pressing into his bottom lip.

“Okay…” he breathes, “That  _is_ pretty lame.”

“Hell yeah.”

“But you. Okay, April there’s always a bright side-”

She groans loudly, drawing her knees up, “Just let me self-deprecate, Raph.”

“That department’s taken, thank you,” Donnie quips from her bed, still invested in whatever he’s hacking into now, and Raph shoots him a stern glare, pointing at his brother.

“You don’t get ta do that shit neither, aight? This is. A self love zone.”

“No depreciation allowed!” Mikey cheers, and settles on the rug beside April, mimicking her as he hugs his legs, “But for realsies, April, you fit in with us just fine an’ Pops says you’ll be a great hit on T.V. one day.”

 _“And-”_  Leo says, eating a cucumber meant for his eyes, “If no one at your school thinks you’re the shit then fuck ‘em!”

“Here, here,” Raph nods, lifting a Capri Sun, “An’ you’ll find humans on ya level, April. Give ‘em time ta catch up.”

And April blinks a few times, the weight of their words sitting on her chest and spreading into the little fissures another night of feeling insignificant birthed, lips tugging into a small smile. She’s not sure if she believes them, not entirely. But maybe it had nothing to do with being or not being who and what she is now, or the universe’s hand in all of it.

Maybe it was just  _them:_ her impossibly, inconceivably dorky brothers and the strange way they made pep talks into artforms and and loving so casual and unconditional.

April guesses, as they pile onto her bed (and force dee to not jump ship, because april’s caught the soft smiles he’d get, when they were all close like this) and watch Clueless for the millionth time- well, she figures it’s got nothing to do with genetics and all that shit.

Humans were shitty, some mutants were too, she’s got a few scars to prove, but together- her found family- they’re not, and she’s lucky for it.

And one day, April promises the universe she once thought, roughly an hour ago, doomed her, she’s going to make sure her brothers find their place, too, in all of this, because screw society and its standards and high school particularly and feeling insecure and out of place and  _so not wanting to be._

And, frankly, long live them- April and her brothers and their social ineptitude- in spite of that

**Author's Note:**

> i headcon that they actually hang out a lot at april's house because why not and, also, that Clueless one of their go-to's. hope you guys enjoyed it as much as i had fun writing it!


End file.
